Former Charity Treasurer Sentenced to Prison for Embezzling

A former treasurer of the Ronald McDonald House Holiday Cruise charity was sentenced Monday to 2½ years in prison and ordered to pay back $112,220 that he embezzled from the Kirkland-based charity, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

Randall Morrison, 50, who now lives in Tallahassee, FL, , the office said in a statement.

The charity solicits volunteers and donations for the Ronald McDonald House and organizes activities for medically fragile children and their families.  

At Morrison’s sentencing for wire fraud in U.S. District Court in Seattle, prosecutors asked that he get significant prison time, writing to the court:

The heartlessness of his acts is indescribable. Mr. Morrison … systematically drained the financial reserves of the charity and used those funds—specifically, donations and charitable gifts earmarked to benefit extremely ill children and their families—to sustain a preferred lifestyle that exceeded his already sizeable income. … Because of Randall Morrison’s embezzlement, the organization has discontinued all but one of its annual events, and now teeters on the brink of ceasing operations altogether.

The case was investigated by the and the U.S. Secret Service Electronic Crimes Task Force.